Unmarried couples are overtaking married couples as the main source of family breakdown according to research by the Marriage Foundation.
The Foundation used Understanding Society to quantify the annual rate of family breakdown. Findings outlined in the organisation’s report include:
- while an average 5.3 per cent of cohabiting couples with dependent children under sixteen split up each year since 2009, only 1.3 per cent of equivalent married couples break up
- cohabiting is a greater risk to family breakdown than low income and poor education
- one-fifth of couples who cohabit account for one half of all family breakdown
The Foundation believes the research has valuable lessons for policy and has called for more parents to consider getting married rather than living together. Harry Benson said:
“….for the sake of children and society at large, parents and future parents should seriously consider making a concrete committment to their family by getting married, or at the very least, making a clear plan for where they are headed.”
Press coverage
- The Times Unwed parents four times more likely than the married to split
- The Daily Mail Most family break-ups involve unmarried parents Co-habiting couples four times as likely to separate
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this news has been re-posted from the Understanding Society website
